Birding Group Visit to Bempton Cliffs : 16th June 2015

Birding Group Visit to Bempton Cliffs : 16th June 2015

We all left the Travelodge at South Cave at 8am and then stopped off at the Ferguson Fawsitt Arms a few miles down the road at Walkington where we had arranged that we could all stop off and partake of their cooked breakfast at £7.50 – a much better deal than that available at the Travelodge. Although it is a hotel, they were happy to have eleven outsiders pop in for breakfast. After a sustaining full English we headed off for Bempton Cliffs reserve getting there reasonably early which was just as well because it wasn’t long before the place was heaving with people.

One of the features of Bempton Cliffs is that they do not own the site but only manage it so they cannot charge an entry fee. This means that huge crowds of people turn up from the local caravan sites (many with dogs !) and schools do lots of days out there for their kids. On this day there were even two minibuses full of Spanish Photographers on a seabird shooting (!) day. This meant that as the day went on it started to become difficult to get a viewing spot as photographers settled in for the day.

They have now got a totally rebuilt visitor centre which is great but it has to be said that on a day like today when it was blazing hot the sheer numbers of people passing through overwhelms their facilities – particularly their toilets which are entirely inadequate in number for the footfall but massively improved in quality. Perhaps worse weather would have been better for us but, as it was, the day was a blazing hot one with a totally cloudless sky.

All these aspects aside, it is hard not to be impressed with this site. There weer Gannet galore and Razorbills and Guillemots and even a few Puffins, though perhaps not as many as some expected. Still, we got good views of a few perched on the cliff ledges (which was a little unusual). There wer plenty of Kittiwakes but I only managed one Shag and one Fulmar and no Rock Pipit.

The meadows were full of Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Goldfinch, Linnet and Reed Buntings. Tree Sparrows were everywhere and so were Swallows. As always with this kind of site it is the sheer numbers of birds and the noise of them that impresses. We had a fantastic visit there and it rounded off a great two-day birding outing for us. We stayed there until around 2pm when we thought it a good idea to return to Manchester to avoid the worst of the rush hour traffic.

Bird Sightings : Bempton Cliffs